[TraineeHuman]

One of the problems in understanding time is overcoming a certain misconception. This is the belief that the present is caused by the past, and that the future is caused by the present. This is simply not true. Worse still, the concept of causality isn’t, ultimately, a valid concept. That the whole idea of “cause and effect” is, strictly, a fallacy and nonsensical was well-known in ancient Asian thought since thousands of years ago. In Western thought, it was proved to be so by the philosopher David Hume in the eighteenth century, and then in a different way by the philosopher Immanuel Kant in the nineteenth century.

Let me present a version of most of Hume’s proof. I have “borrowed” this from the writings of the late Allan Watts. Suppose I’m sitting in front of a picket fence which is missing one post, and hence has a vertical gap. I see the head of a snake pass across the gap, then I see the middle of the snake, then what is clearly its tail. Day after day I see the same things, in the same order. I deduce that the snake’s head must be the cause of the snake’s middle, and the middle must be the cause of its tail.

But that’s wrong, you’ll object. Well, of course, this is all a metaphor for what we do whenever we assert that causality – cause and effect – is at work. We see X (such as the snake’s head) and we notice that it is always followed by Y (the snake’s middle). We claim to deduce that X always leads to Y. But no, the truth is that they’re interconnected, that’s all.

You’ll notice that a major area of physics – quantum physics – isn’t based on causality. Now you know why.

Also, notice that this proves that the concept of being a total victim is never valid. However much it appears that you may be the victim, the effect, of somebody or something else, the truth is, you are also partly the cause of it, and you can always, always cause effects of your own on the other person or thing.